One Word Chart, A Variety of Activities

This worksheet was one of JS' first "formal education" which I started with him when he was two and a half. At that time, what I had in mind was still the "very Malaysian parent" way of teaching where we begin with alphabets and words so this was what we did. I knew that my son would not be able to sit still to learn the alphabets using a chart so I made him create his own. I think he learnt more because he did most of the work and at the same time, it helped him to develop his  motor skills. 

He already knew most of the capital letters when we did this activity. I think this helped a lot in making him enjoy making the charts because it was something that he was familiar with. I would include some words that he already knew instead of introducing a set of totally new words. My purpose was to build confidence in him that he was able to do the task and then learn two to three new words. I think having confidence in himself is crucial for further learning.

The materials needed for this activity are foam sheets, glue stick (less messy and easy to handle), double sided tapes, labeling stickers, markers, pictures and A2 size art block. I used an easel too because I think he would be able to see the chart better that way. 

I wrote the words on the art block for him as a guide not to stick the pictures too near or too far from each other. 

This is how the charts look like. 

I was not really particular with him knowing exactly the spelling of the words or why "lion" is on the "L" chart and not the "K" chart, "elephant" is on the "E" chart and not on the "B" chart, etc. My objective was for him to be able to complete a specific task, learn both the capital and small letters, new words and to enjoy the activity. 

After he completed all the 26 letters, we moved on to letter recognition where he had to find the letter of the chart from the words and highlight them. 

When he started to show interest in learning words, I made him spell the words on the chart using the wooden alphabets. As the words on the chart are written in small letter and the wooden alphabets are in capital letters, this activity also helped him to strengthen his knowledge in both the upper and lower cases as he often mistaken the small letter "l" for capital letter "I" and "b" for "d" and vice versa. 

I am glad we made these charts as they can be used for a variety of activities.